The wind whistled in Percy's ear as he and Annabeth sped towards the jagged peaks in the distance. The forest below blurred into a mesh of green, brown, gray, and blue. Percy stared downwards, getting dizzy from the morphing and shifting colors. He liked it though, it helped pass the time.
Onwards they flew, as time dragged on. Percy getting mesmerized by the colors of the forest. Annabeth faced forwards the whole time, lost in her own thoughts, but still attentive.
It wasn't long before the finer details of Jade Mountain became clear, including a large cavernous entrance and several smaller dotting the side facing them. Dragons swarmed the area, all colors of the rainbow. Blue, white, black, red, green...
Wow! That's quite a sight.
"Percy! Heads up. Looks like we found what we came for. Other dragons," Annabeth yelled over her shoulders.
"Aww man. I was just getting to the good part of the forest," Percy whined. He looked up and towards where Annabeth pointed, his pouty face quickly morphing after seeing what lay in front of Annabeth.
"You know, I'm starting to doubt going this way. What if these dragons are hostile? It's not like we have Piper with us to make them go all wide-eyed," Percy said.
"We've already come this far. We don't have anywhere else to go, and besides, I have faith in your water powers. Just don't pull what you did with Achlys, you know. That's scary," Annabeth replied.
They drew in a deep breath, taking a few moments to compose themselves, and prepared for the final stretch.
Percy pulled up besides Annabeth as the mountain quickly drew in.
"It seems like the dragons are in a frenzy. I need you to be on guard, Percy."
"Yes ma'am," Percy said with a chuckle.
Annabeth just rolled her eyes.
They started hearing voices. Frantic voices. Some confused, some panicked, others commanding.
Percy glanced around, observing where to land. He caught a glint near the corner of his vision. Turning his head, he saw a golden dragon sobbing, with a brown dragon poking at...
Wait. Hold on a sec. What is that? What is that dragon poking at? A... am I seeing that right?
Percy squinted his eyes, then gasped in horror.
"A head!"
"What? Percy, did you find something?"
"Yeah. Look over there! Good gods. I think we should go check it out!"
"Maybe we were sent here to do something after all," Annabeth mused out loud.
They veered towards the smaller entrance where the golden dragon was keening.
Touching down, they saw a green/blue dragon extract something from the ear of the dead dragon's head. They saw the blue-green and red scales shifted, flipping inside out, while the shape of the head changed, till the decapitated head looked similar to the head of the brown dragon nearby. They watched in disgusted fascination.
"I'm gonna be sick," Annabeth muttered, battling the urge to not heave.
"What happened!? What happened to Glory?" the brown dragon cried.
"Who is that?" the smoking copper dragon said.
"Not Queen Glory after all. This is magic, and enchantment of some kind," the green dragon said as he inquisitively held up the object he pulled from the ear.
As Percy and Annabeth walked closer, it became clear the object was a piece of paper.
The dragons turned towards them with various forms of confusion, and an awkward silence ensued.
"It's not Glory! Clay! Glory is still alive! Thank the moons!" Sunny exclaimed, still unaware of the newcomers.
"Do we know you?" The smoky dragon said, threateningly.
"Peril, stand down," the brown dragon said. "Hi. I'm Clay. Nice to meet you," he said, turning to Percy and Annabeth.
His openness was definitely confusing, especially juxtaposed with the sniffling golden dragon standing behind him.
They glanced back at Clay.
"Uh, hi? I'm - " Percy started before he was cut off.
"Names hold power. You need not know our names. Not yet, at least," Annabeth said. "We're not hostile if you wanted to know."
The smile of Clay's face faded a bit. "Oh," he muttered.
"So why are you here?" Peril said.
"We saw commotion over here and decided to come to investigate. What happened?" Percy asked, pointing at the head that lay on the stone.
"Wait, who are these dragons?" she asked, finally out of her bubble.
"They were just worried about Glory it seems. Speaking of which, we should probably tell them what happened," Clay answered.
"So basically ex-queen Scarlet comes and throws the 'head' of Queen Glory at us. She flees, then Queen Ruby, her daughter, chases after ex-queen Scarlet with her entourage, as well as Tsunami, a friend of mine. I'm not sure what happened to them. We will know later. Turtle comes by, pulls out a piece of paper, and now we find out it isn't Glory's head, but rather an enchanted head of a random MudWing she probably killed for this," Clay summarized.
"That sounds convoluted. So why did all this happen?" Annabeth asked.
"Scarlet probably wanted revenge on us," Clay replied.
They soon figured out the history of this land, as Clay and Sunny told them everything. They seemed to forget the presence of Peril, who contemplated their utter lack of knowledge.
"Okay, look. It's good and all that y'all got a history lesson, but y'all are dragons. Why do you guys not know a single thing about our history? It's taught everywhere. That war was everywhere," Peril said in a low voice to Turtle.
"It does seem weird. The War of SandWing Succession was everywhere. There is no way you could have missed all the bloodshed," Turtle added.
Peril slowly advanced on them. "Tell us. How do you not know? What are you? Stupid? Or foreign?"
Percy flared his wings. Good thing they didn't know his name or the situation would be that much worse.
Clay tried to defuse the situation but to no avail. "Woah, slow down Peril. They aren't hostile. Please stop. Don't. Don't be the dragon you once were."
Unfortunately, the words flew in one ear and soared out the other. Her eyes narrowed to slits.
Annabeth knew Peril had fire powers. She was smoking, unlike any other dragon around. She would only serve to hinder Percy, who had the perfect antidote. She backed off the cliff, and flew off, turning around to hover.
"It's up to you, Percy. I can only hinder you at this point!" she called out.
Peril charged. Percy performed a tactical retreat, flying down the mountain for a favorable battle location, landing near a stream. He may be clueless sometimes, but he wasn't stupid. This dragon was dangerous.
Peril landed in front of him, charring the ground and quickly starting flames that spread across the grass.
Clay and Sunny watched on in horror. He thought Peril was reformed, but unfortunately, the new dragon was suspicious to him even. Percy was dead for certain. Turtle looked on but made no moves.
Facing off at the base of the cliff, near a small stream, the fighters took stances.
"Come at me, Smokey," Percy taunted, flicking his talons towards himself. She obliged, charging forward. Just as she was about to close her talons on Percy's face, she was punched into the side of the mountain. Not hard enough for serious damage, but enough to send a message. She coughed and sputtered, then stood up, glaring daggers at Percy. He was perfectly fine, much to her dislike. The spectators saw something had punched Peril, but it was too fast for them to see what it was.
Peril charged once more, closing the distance more rapidly than last time, this time charging fire breath. She fired the almost laser-like stream of fire shot towards Percy. Suddenly, a wall of steam was blown into her face. It dispersed, to show Percy perfectly fine. The spectators gasped. Other dragons noticed the fight and joined those already present to watch the former Champion of the most bloodthirsty queen in recent history fight what they thought was a normal Seawing.
"Enough of these smoke and mirror tricks, fool! Fight talon to talon like a real dragon!" Peril roared.
So began a vicious cycle of taunting, circling each other, and the occasional collision. Percy made sure to conserve his energy. His opponent was getting tired fast.
"Aw, done so soon? Entertain me some more, Smokey!" Percy taunted, loudly to make sure the spectators heard it. Peril knew it too and decided to not lose any more dignity.
She growled, and shot into the sky, before turning around and diving towards Percy, talons out.
She was slammed by something into the mountain. A short burst of steam appeared but quickly cleared. Peril's still body lay in the steaming rubble, much to everyone's shock. After several moments, she let out a groan, panting from exertion. She turned herself over, and heaved herself up, wincing with pain. Everyone gasped, seeing Peril wounded. They turned towards Percy and were shocked to see a fist of water right behind him.
He held it there a bit for show, smirking, before letting it sink away, instead of manifesting a shard of ice. With a flick of his talons, he sent it careening towards Peril, planting right in front of her. She looked down with amazement, before letting out a gasp herself, seeing it melt instantly and reform into a sword, flying back to Percy's talons. He sauntered up to her and held the sword to her throat. She glanced down, then back at Percy. She narrowed her eyes and increased her output of heat. The blade stayed solid.
"What is this sorcery?" she hissed. "Why is it not melting?"
"I can keep it solid," he said, leaning in closer, smirking. "Now, do you concede?"
Everyone held their breath. Except for one dragon.
"Percy?"